


Unfinished Magic Reveal AUs

by AithuzahFic (veritably_mad)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Magic Revealed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 14:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3854512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veritably_mad/pseuds/AithuzahFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During high school, before the magic reveal happened in canon, I wrote a number of fics exploring the possibilities. I didn't finish any of them, and some of them are only a few lines long, but here they are anyway. Enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Subtle Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arthur throws Merlin in the cells for the treasonous crime of magic use, and Merlin gets annoyed.

Merlin had been locked in a cell ten minutes after Arthur found him sweeping the floor without touching the broom.  
  
There had been a strangled second when Arthur said his name, shocked, angry, and then the broom had clattered to the floor. Merlin had flinched, heart pounding. Before the apologies and explanations that teetered on the tip of his tongue could lose their balance and fall forward into the silence, Arthur had called for the guards. They had dragged him away and he still hadn't managed to say a thing.  
  
Merlin waited patiently for a week. Guilty, scared, and a little bit hopeful that the noticeable lack of execution was a good sign, he resigned himself to waiting for Arthur to talk to him. He was ready to explain, should Arthur want to hear it. He was ready to leave should Arthur banish him, too, and he had some half-formed plans to stay close but hidden to protect Arthur from the threat of the week. They weren't very good plans, of course, but he'd figure something out. He always did.  
  
Arthur didn't come, though, and he wasn't sure if he should be nervous or annoyed. Arthur probably didn't want to see him. Maybe this was his way of punishing Merlin. Maybe he was never going to come. Maybe Merlin would be left there, a permanent prisoner. Maybe he was homicidally angry and Merlin was actually here for his own protection. In any case, Arthur was nowhere to be seen, the guards all stared at him with fear and wariness, and he had nothing to do but think, worry, and feel gut-twistingly guilty.  
  
A week and a half after Arthur had abandoned him to rats, a hard floor, rotting straw, and stale, meager food, Merlin was _so_ over the worrying thing. He'd moved on to skull-numbing boredom. He wondered if Arthur had forgotten about him, and then dismissed the idea because Arthur was oblivious, not forgetful or stupid, and this was not the sort of thing he would forget about even if he was the forgetful type. Then he thought that maybe Arthur just didn't care, but that was stupid for too many reasons to entertain the thought longer than it took to have it. The most likely explanation Merlin could come up with was that Arthur was avoiding him.  
  
He talked to the guards. He asked them what was happening in the rest of the castle, about Gwen, about Gaius, about the knights. He peppered the silence with random thoughts, mostly comments on the condition of the cell or what he would be doing if he weren't locked away.  
  
The guards never answered, and they were never people he knew, but he caught one of them chuckling once at a comment Merlin made before his partner elbowed him. Merlin counted this as a victory, and began tallying the times he could pull a reaction from the guards. He told stories, either made-up tales or little anecdotes from his time at Camelot. Nothing too embarrassing on Arthur's part, though of course he was present in most of them. Merlin didn't bother to ask after the king, though. He wouldn't get a response, and the first time he'd tried, the guards had glared at him suspiciously for the rest of the night.  
  
He walked in circles around the cell until he was dizzy, then reversed direction, too restless to sit down and stay still. He wondered what Arthur was doing, if he was safe, if Gwen was making sure he didn't work himself too hard. He wasn't allowed visitors, though he heard Gwen a couple times, asking to see him. He smiled at her attempts, touched and grateful.  
  
By the third week, Merlin was too bored to talk himself out of the idea that had been teasing at the edges of his mind. They already know, it said. There's no harm, it said. It won't make a difference. Nothing will change. He couldn't find it in himself to repeat the counter arguments he had lined up and ready from constant use.  
  
It started with cleaning. He cleared up most of the grime with spells he'd used on Arthur's armor after muddy days, and magicked the dirty straw into a corner before politely asking if someone could remove it and have it replaced. The guards stared at him in horrified disbelief, and didn't reply, but eventually he woke up to find straw that was more yellow than brown.  
  
Next was the food. He started heating it when it came, so the stale bread was crunchy and warm instead of hard and cold, and he purified the water so it didn't taste like it came from a horse's trough. He wondered why he hadn't done this before, and dismissed the familiar arguments as unimportant next to feeling like a human being rather than a caged animal.  
  
He cleaned himself, and his clothes, which had begun to feel stiff, but he didn't know what to do about the bed. He didn't know quite how to conjure a pillow and blankets, though he was sure he could. He decided he had better not risk bringing a chunk of something else or the wrong thing entirely because he didn't know the spell. He settled for a heating spell and using his balled-up jacket as a pillow.  
  
The guards eyed him, and each other, and tried to get him to stop. He shrugged, explained that if the king had already locked him up for sorcery, he couldn't really incriminate himself further. They ordered him, then tried to convince him, but finally they gave up when he kept insisting he was bored and they realized there wasn't much they were willing to do to upset a sorcerer. Beyond what they were already doing, of course. He thought it was a bit ridiculous and entirely telling that they were still scared of him, even after seeing what he could do and that he hadn't done anything to them yet.  
  
Well. He had helped Aric win at cards that one time, because Liam was being a cheat and a bully, but that was beside the point.  
  
He started playing with fire, and that got the best reaction of all. One of them actually yelped, like he thought Merlin would attack them or set something on fire. He didn't, of course. He played with it, making shapes and words in the air. He wrote messages to the guards in flames, and laughed at their startled faces. One of them--Korad--grinned nervously at his message, a very threatening "How has your day been?"  
  
There were six sets of guards, which rotated every four hours. Merlin knew their names, and he knew that at this point they knew him better than they ever expected to, though they rarely volunteered information about themselves.  
  
Before the third week had ended, Merlin was more worried that Arthur was going to be horribly murdered by an avenging sorcerer while Merlin was "indisposed" than he was about what Arthur thought of him. He decided that it was high time he got out of there.  
  
So he decided to send Arthur a message.  
  
  
Arthur was having what he deemed great success in not thinking about his sorcerer-servant. Anytime a furious question sprang into his mind, hot and confused--Why didn't he tell me? What was he thinking? Why is he here? What does he want?--he would shove it down and throw himself into whatever he was doing. He trained every night so he could fall asleep unencumbered by betrayal and anger. His replacement servant was as good as invisible, though the abrupt change from shoddy jobs to pristine conditions grated on his raw nerves in ways he couldn't explain. He buried himself in paperwork, trained his knights harder than ever, and accompanied the patrols as often as the new king could afford.  
  
Gwen avoided him. His knights were polite, but cold, and Gwaine shot angry glances at him whenever he could. The knight tried to convince him to free Merlin, but Arthur just shook his head and walked away without answering.  
  
Sometimes his feet led him to the dungeons without his permission, and he stopped himself before he reached his destination. He took several steadying breaths, dammed the flood of questions--What else is he hiding? Has he ever enchanted me? When did he become a sorcerer? Does he really clean like that all the time? What else does he do? What else can he do? How is he such an awful liar with a secret like this? Is he even an awful liar at all, or an excellent actor? How could I trust him so much?--and turned back around. Not ready, he thought desperately. I'm not ready.  
  
Arthur was no coward, but he knew better than to go into battle unprepared.  
  
He listened to the guards' reports, trying to seem indifferent, hiding his rising curiosity, his need to know. He couldn't, shouldn't care so much about a sorcerer, even if that sorcerer had once been his friend and servant.  
  
They didn't have much to report during the first week, but things changed during the second.  Shifting uncomfortably, they lowered their eyes and admitted that the prisoner was _talking_ to them. Arthur did his best not to say, "Merlin? Talking? _Never_ ," and roll his eyes. He couldn't help but be relieved, though. A talking Merlin was ten steps closer to normal than a silent Merlin.  
  
Then the guards were reporting magic, and that was twenty steps back from normal. Arthur's idea of normal, at least. He had no idea what normal was for Merlin.  
  
"He won't stop," one of the guards explained miserably. "He says he's bored, and that he may as well do what he likes because he's already locked up."  
  
Cheeky, whiny, insubordinate, flagrantly disobeying orders. Ten steps closer to normal. He told the guards to ignore the prisoner as long as he wasn't hurting anyone or trying to escape, and went back to his routine of Not Thinking About It.  
  
He found himself in the vicinity of the dungeons where Merlin was held twice the next day, when he had no business in that area of the castle. He gritted his teeth and turned around.  
  
He was having dinner when--what was his name, Aaron? Aric? Yes, Aric-- and his partner Liam came to him, looking fidgety and unsure.  
Liam licked his lips and opened his mouth as if to start, hesitated, then nudged Aric.  
  
"You tell him, Aric, you tell him what he did," Liam said, sweating.  
  
"What did Merlin do?" Arthur asked cautiously.  
  
"He, ah, unlocked the cell door."  
  
Arthur waited. Aric fidgeted. Liam twitched.  "And?"  
  
"And that's it. He unlocked it, and it swung open, and he just sat against the wall and looked smug." The guard sounded almost exasperated.  
  
"I see." And, unfortunately, Arthur did see. Merlin had waited, and now he was saying, in the most Merlin-y way possible, "I'm ready to get out now, if you don't mind." But he was waiting on Arthur to make the call.

Arthur contained a heavy sigh and asked instead, "And what did you do about that?"  
  
"Well, we locked it back up, of course," Liam said, and blinked in a way similar to a flinch. "And then he unlocked it again. So we locked it and put a rock down so it wouldn't swing open like it kept doing--"  
  
This was why Liam was a guard and not likely to become a knight anytime soon. A _rock_. As if that would stop a sorcerer who played with fire and unlocked doors with his mind.  
  
"And that helped how, exactly?"  
  
"It--didn't," Aric admitted. "He didn't even bother to move it out of the way first. When the door swung open, the rock moved with it."  
  
It probably wasn't even a particularly heavy rock, either. And Arthur wondered how so many prisoners escaped. He needed to improve dungeon security.  
  
"Anything else to report?"  
  
"No, Sire."  
  
"Then you are dismissed."  
  
"You--Sire? Shouldn't we do something?"  
  
"What can you do? You already tried locking the door and that _genius_ trick with the rock. Ignore him. He isn't going anywhere."  
  
"But how are you sure?" Aric was wide-eyed and confused, even though Liam was digging his elbow into the other man's side.  
  
"How long has he been in the cell?" Arthur asked, ignoring Liam's whispered warning and Aric's wince at the jab to his ribs.  
  
"Almost three weeks, Sire."  
  
"And he has been able to unlock the cell door for the entire time. He could have set you on fire, or a number of other bizarre fates could have befallen you. He could have used your swords against you. He could have escaped. Even now, with the door unlocked, he remains in his cell. What does this tell you?"  
  
"He...doesn't want to leave? But that doesn't make sense..."  
  
"No, it doesn't. He wants to leave. He's waiting for something."  
  
"Waiting for what?"  
  
"I don't know," Arthur said, even though he did. "You are dismissed. Alert the other shifts to the new developments, as always."  
  
"Yes, Sire." Aric and Liam left, the former puzzled and dissatisfied, the latter relieved.  
  
Arthur decided to ignore Merlin's message for now, make him wait another day or two. Then he would go, before the idiot did something drastic such as show up in the throne room and demand an audience.  
  
The next day, it was Holdyn and Gulric who brought news of the latest change.  
  
"He's making statues out of the straw now. A horse that galloped around his cell, a dragon that could fly, a rabbit that hopped about. He set one of them on fire--it was a bird, see--and then he made another bird out of the ashes."  
  
Well, if that wasn't another message disguised as a ridiculous metaphor, Arthur would sell his crown.  
  
One more day. Then he would go.  
  
"Um, he wrote you a message," Wendyll told him a day later, holding his helmet in his hands and absently shingling the edge with his sleeve. Beside him, Olric stood still and stiff, as if he had been tied to a tree for so long he'd forgotten how to bend. "In flames. In the air."  
  
"And what does he say?"  
  
Wendyll cleared his throat. "He says--his words, Sire, not mine, I swear--'Dear King Prat, If you would deign grace your faithful servant with your royal presence, he wouldn't have to resort to magic tricks to apologize. Signed, A bored but exceedingly patient warlock'. And then he asked if we could please pass it on to the king. Which would be you, Sire."  
  
"I am aware of that, thank you, Wendyll," Arthur said, keeping his voice commendably diplomatic and not sounding nearly as exasperated as he felt. "Anything else?"  
  
"No, Sire."  
  
"Then you may leave."  
  
Give it an hour, maybe. As long as it takes to clear up this paperwork. No need to seem like a prisoner is bossing around the king.  
  
He was beginning to feel a bit like a coward.  
  
When the hour ended, he forced himself to set down his quill and stand. His feet took him to the dungeons easily, and this time, he let them take him the rest of the way. At last he stood in front of the current shift of guards. Both looked a mixture of shocked and relieved, and stepped aside without a word exchanged.  
  
Merlin was lying on his back with his feet crossed and propped partway up the wall. His jacket was rolled and shoved under his mop of black hair, and his face was even paler and more gaunt than normal from the time out of the sun and surviving on a prisoner's rations. Arthur felt a stab of guilt, which he shoved back. A few weeks in a cell was a fair punishment for years of deceit and treachery. Lenient, considering the laws against magic.  
  
Merlin hadn't noticed him. He shifted, one too-thin arm moving to rest on his stomach. The other lifted  to flick in the air, and tiny flecks of golden light sparked at his fingertips, dancing. Arthur crossed his arms, frowning at the display. It was too innocent, too beautiful. _Be bad_ , Arthur thought at it, irritated. _Be evil so this can be simple_. The gold lights remained harmless.  
  
"Do you think he'll remember I exist if I show up in his chambers?" Merlin called out, obviously trying to catch the attention of the guards who stood in the doorway, glancing nervously between their king and the sorcerer.  
  
"I hardly think that will be necessary," Arthur drawled, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. Merlin scrambled to his feet in a flurry of awkward movement, the gold lights vanished.  
  
"Arthur!" he gasped, his face wide open with disbelief. He gaped like a fish and Arthur bit back the urge to smile at how ridiculous he looked. Instead, he quirked an eyebrow at the guards. They took the hint and backed away within sight but out of earshot if Arthur and Merlin spoke quietly. When Arthur turned back, Merlin's expression had shifted into annoyance.  
  
"Three weeks and not a chance to explain myself," he said, eyes narrowed and accusing. "And--well, obviously I'm not going to apologize for the magic, but I am sorry I lied.  I'm sorry I couldn't tell you, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you when I probably could have, and yes, I'm an idiot. You already know that."  
  
"Anyone who has the misfortune of meeting you knows that," Arthur said wryly, slipping into the familiar routine with greater ease than he expected.  
  
"That may or may not be true," Merlin conceded, relaxing a bit. "And I've made more than my share of mistakes. I'm willing to tell you everything if you're willing to listen, and I thought you should know that before I started to rot down here, you _arse_."  
  
"Stop whining, I'm being more than generous."  
  
"Yes, this is fine repayment for risking my life for yours every bloody time a magical something-or-other decided to take out their vengeance on you rather than your father," the warlock retorted, but his expression softened, his eyes dropping to the cell floor, his hands twisting the hem of his shirt. "But--thanks. For, you know, not killing me for cleaning your room in a less-than-conventional way."  
  
Arthur snorted. "Merlin, if I killed you every time you did something unconventional, you would have been dead years ago. Right after you opened your mouth, in fact." And just like that, there was the smile Arthur had been trying not miss, the one that split Merlin's face in the goofiest manner possible so Arthur couldn't help but grin in return, no matter how he tried not to. "So. What were you saying about an explanation?" he asked.  
  
"It's long, and not always pleasant," Merlin warned, serious again. "But you deserve to know the truth. Erm. You might want to make sure you don't have anything to do for a while, and pull up a chair."  
  
"That long?"  
  
The warlock shrugged. "It's my life story."  
  
Arthur ordered a guard to bring him a chair, and he made himself comfortable. Merlin told him to ask questions at the end, since he thought he would answer most of the ones the king might have, and began.  
  
It really was his life story. Arthur tried to ask questions despite Merlin's request, which earned him a scowl and an annoyed "I'm _getting_ to that." Eventually he realized that Merlin did get to it later, so he held his tongue.  
  
At one point he said, mindful of the time, "You don't have to tell me every time you used magic, you know."  
  
Merlin flushed, the tips of his ears turning pink. "I'm not."  
  
"Oh." He didn't comment again for a while after that.  
  
It was horribly, stupidly obvious when told from Merlin's perspective. The close calls. The dumb luck. The coincidences. The rockfalls, the fires, the fallen branches, the unbeatable magical beasts beaten, the improbable escapes, the kingdom saved time and again. All Merlin. He hadn't done any of it, deserved nothing.  
  
" _No_ ," Merlin said violently when Arthur said as much. His long, pale fingers wrapped around the bars, and he leaned forward against them. "No, it wasn't just me. I help when I can, yeah, but I'm not a leader, not really. I'm not--people don't listen to me, they listen to you." Skepticism must have shown on Arthur's face, because Merlin shook his head, frustrated, and continued. "No, don't give me that look. I'm not joking. If I didn't have my magic, I'd be nothing, nobody. I'd be--I'd be in Ealdor, living with my mother as a farmer, and that would have been enough. But you couldn't live like that, not even if you had been born a villager, too. You'd be starting revolutions and overthrowing oppressive rulers, because that's who you are. That's who you were born to be. It has nothing to do with me, and nothing to do with being born a prince."  
  
"You have an awful lot of faith in someone who can't even spot a sorcerer while living in the same castle."  
  
"That wasn't your fault. And I don't have faith in you because you're royalty or because a dragon told me it was my destiny to protect you. If that was the only guarantee I had that you'd be a good king, I'd have left a long time ago. A _really_ long time ago," he added with a smirk to lighten the mood. "But it wasn't the only guarantee, because then you went and proved that my first impression of you wasn't the whole you. I believe you will be the greatest king Albion has ever seen because I see it. I have seen it."  
  
Arthur was shaken by the intensity of the speech, loyalty and belief shining in Merlin's eyes, but he argued anyway. "And when did you see that, exactly? When I was knocked out for the hundredth time? When I didn't notice that Morgana was falling apart before my eyes? When--"  
  
"When you were willing to give your life for your people. When you defended a helpless village that wasn't even in your kingdom because it was the right thing to do. When you risked your life for servants. When you defied your father for the safety of a child. When you work yourself harder than any of your knights because you don't want to be the kind of king who leads from the safety of his castle while his people die for him. I could go on, but I don't think your ego actually needs it. You're just being difficult. As always."  
  
Arthur laughed, then, a chuckle that was half-relieved, half-awed at Merlin's conviction. He gestured for Merlin to continue.  
  
As the sorcerer talked, Arthur tallied the lives Merlin had saved against the lives he had cost. The damage was great--especially considering his "favor" to the dragon that had then decided to go on a _murderous rampage_ \--but it was just as hard to ignore the other side, which included several kingdom-saving feats and he was having trouble deciding if he ought to count himself once or every time his life was saved. It was a rather disturbing trend, seeing how often he would have died without Merlin around to--to _protect_  him, like the cheeky idiot had been not-so-subtly suggesting all along. As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, he'd been doing it with magic, an ability which Arthur had outright denied (multiple times) Merlin could possibly possess. He wondered whether he should be more upset at Merlin or himself.  
  
He decided that being upset at Merlin was the safer option, at least for now. He would have plenty of time to kick himself for being blind later.  
  
So he let himself snap and rant and glare while Merlin attempted to finish his tale. It earned him more than a few insults and reprimands for interrupting.  
  
"So, that's it," Merlin said at last. By this point he was sitting cross-legged at the back of his cell, quiet and subdued with the weight of his more recent activities. His fingers were tangled together and twisting, his eyes locked on the slow movement.  
  
Arthur watched him for a moment longer before responding. "Yes, I suppose it is," he said, levering himself from the wooden chair. He saw Merlin's eyes flash upwards to meet his before Arthur turned around and left without another word.  
  
  
Merlin felt he may have been hasty about assuming execution was off the table.  
  
Arthur's expression had been blank, unreadable, for much of their talk. When it wasn't, it was clouded with anger or pulled into the familiar mocking smugness that suddenly carried an uncomfortable wariness, setting Merlin on edge. When the king had finally stood to leave, his voice fell flat and heavy into the silence, a dismissal of sorts. When Merlin looked up, it was to see a face as still as if it had been carved from stone before it disappeared from view, leaving the warlock feeling that he had said something unforgivable.  
  
Considering everything he had done and the mistakes he had made, that wasn't entirely far-fetched.  
  
He'd done what he could, hadn't he? He had told the truth as plainly as possibly, down to the last incriminating detail. His every triumph, every failure, was laid out for Arthur to weigh and judge, and it seemed that he would not judge as kindly as Merlin had hoped, though not quite as harshly as he had dreaded. Maybe. Horrible and agonizing death didn't seem so unlikely in the cold emptiness Arthur had left behind.  
  
He would have to be satisfied with that for now, and hope things would get better.  
  
He sat in silence for the rest of the day. Arthur's visit had brought all the guilt that had been simmering inside him to a boil, bubbles of what-ifs and should-have-dones bursting in painful jolts.  
  
He waited. The guards were unnerved again by his sudden silence, and possibly even the lack of magical displays. Something had changed because of the king's visit, but what it was, what it meant, they didn't know. Merlin didn't know.  
  
Two days later, the guilt had subsided again to its usual place at the back of his mind, and he still didn't know what Arthur was thinking. Execution still hadn't happened, obviously. That didn't mean banishment or a lifelong jail sentence were off the table. Or maybe Arthur was just being vindictive again and he'd be let out some random day with a cheerfully vicious "All right, Merlin, vacation time is over, time to get back to work!"  
  
He wondered if it would take another three weeks before they made any more progress, and if this counted as progress at all. It had to, he supposed. Arthur knew everything and that made all the difference. Still, it felt like they had taken two steps forward and one step back.  
  
But they would get back to their peculiar definition of normal eventually.  
  
Wouldn't they?  
  
  
Arthur was busy making lists for several days. He forced himself to ignore how he felt and focused on the facts instead, both as Merlin had presented them and as he remembered them. They lined up almost exactly, the vague and confusing points Arthur had (stupidly) ignored for the past several years making sense in the light of the new information.  
  
Much of it did not put Arthur in the most flattering of perspectives.  
  
His lists mainly acted as various scales of judgment. He weighed the lives Merlin had saved against the lives his actions had cost, also trying to factor in intentions and unforeseen circumstances. It was tedious and confusing, and he ended up knowing Merlin's story better than he knew his own from repeating every incident in his mind again and again. Combined, the sheets of parchment were almost Merlin's biography.  
  
He discounted sorcery as a crime for the purpose of his lists. He really didn't have much of a choice, not if he wanted Merlin to live. He ignored how the action was completed and focused on the action itself, and with a realization that was a bit like a smack to the back of the head, he knew people should never be judged any other way. A wave of nausea rolled through him at the thought, the images of the pyre and the executioner's block looming at the edge of his mind. If magic was discounted as a crime--if it was just a normal way to do things, something that was as ordinary as using a fork or a broom--  
  
How many people had died because they had lit a candle, or lifted an object, or healed a loved one?  
  
He pushed the guilt and illness away. He would change the law, not just reverse it but modify it to accommodate different kinds of magic. That necromancy business sounded nasty, and he didn't want any of that sort being commonplace, but things like healing or neutral actions wouldn't be illegal anymore. He'd need to talk to Merlin about it, how he could enforce the new law and how he could discern good magic from the bad stuff and what could be used either way, and how they could keep people from misusing that. There would not be one all-encompassing punishment, either. If someone stole using magic, they would be punished as a thief. If they helped someone using magic, then they would be rewarded, just like anyone else. It was simple.  
  
In theory, anyway. In practice, he had no doubt that it would be mind-numbingly complicated, with twenty years of fear and prejudice to unravel, and a political mess of fantastic proportions. There was no helping that, though, and as long as no more innocent people were executed, Arthur couldn't bring himself to mind very much.  
  
He wrote drafts and ideas for how the law would be worded, ways it could be enforced, and when and how each phase could be enacted. Obviously, an overnight upheaval of his father's most known law would not be well-received.


	2. Lies and a Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Merlin tells Arthur about his magic in the most inane way possible.

"Arthur, I eat babies," Merlin announced, startling Arthur into a choked laugh and dragging his attention away from the reports spread across the desk in his chambers. "My hair isn't black, it's pink. I've tried to kill you about a hundred times but I'm really awful at it so it never works. Will wasn't the sorcerer in Ealdor, I was, and I've been helping you save Camelot with magic since we met. You're not the king of Camelot; we're all humoring your sad delusion. Uh. The castle is made of turkey. I actually am a girl. And evil. My goal is the downfall of Camelot. You're actually a girl. And, uh. One of those statements is true. The rest are lies."  
  
Arthur stared at Merlin where he was standing between the closed door and the fireplace. "That's ridiculous," he said finally. "Everything that just came out of your mouth is ridiculous. What are you playing at? I don't believe a word of it."  
  
"One statement is true. The rest are lies," Merlin repeated, fidgeting. He wouldn't meet Arthur's eyes, narrowed as they were in suspicion, and knelt instead to add wood to the fire and stoke the dying embers into flame around the fresh fuel.  
  
"Well, neither of us is a girl, no matter how much you act like one," he drawled, raising an eyebrow. "The castle is definitely made of stone, and I can bloody well see your hair isn't pink. We've established that you're too much of an idiot to be a sorcerer--" At this, Merlin snorted, and Arthur smirked at him before continuing. "What else did you say? Something about--eating babies. Well, I'm sure someone would have complained by now if that were the case. You're not evil, but... I might buy the bit about you trying to kill me and being awful at it--you're bad enough at everything else, I don't know why murder should be any different. There. Was that it? Did I miss anything?"  
  
Merlin's lips twitched into a tiny smile. "Oh, you definitely missed something. That wasn't it. I haven't tried to kill you." He half-laughed, but he sounded nervous. Serious, and Arthur didn't know why, because this whole twisted game was ludicrous. Merlin stood awkwardly and ambled to the bed, smoothing the already flat surface pointlessly.  
  
"So, it must be something else, then," he said, playing along.  
  
Merlin nodded, answering a question that hadn't been asked, still twitching the covers around until they were more rumpled than they had been before he'd interfered. "Something else."  
  
"Well." Arthur thought back to the list of impossible things and started ticking them off again. "Castle isn't turkey," he said and glanced at Merlin, who gave a crooked, awkward smile before nodding in agreement and stopping to pick a balled-up pair of trousers from the floor. He chucked them into a corner behind a chest.  
  
"Castle isn't turkey," he echoed, and that was getting a bit annoying.  
  
"We're not girls."  
  
"We're not girls."  
  
Arthur scowled. What was the bloody point of all this...this repeating and nonsense? Arthur hoped he never understood how Merlin's brain worked, because that would be the day he went well and truly mad.  
  
"No pink hair," he said, continuing for no real reason other than to see if there _was_ a point. And if Merlin's seriousness about the whole thing was weird, well, he wasn't worried, exactly, but he wanted to know why. His eyes drifted to where his fingers still curled loosely around his quill. He swished it.  
  
"No pink hair."  
  
"No...no baby-eating."  
  
"No baby-eating."  
  
"No sorcery."  
  
There was no echo.  
  
He looked up to see Merlin staring at the wall, perfectly still and wide-eyed. Arthur didn't think he was breathing.  
  
"Sorcery," he said blankly. The air seemed too thin to breathe. "You're a sorcerer." Merlin twitched a bit at that, a tiny flutter of eyelashes, a tightening around the eyes, before he let out a long, shuddering breath and nodded once. He turned to Arthur, straight-backed and tense, but his eyes were locked on the wall above and behind Arthur's face. Arthur scowled.  
  
"I--" Merlin--the sorcerer who had apparently raised the wind that defeated the raiders in Ealdor-- _Merlin the sorcerer_ began before stuttering to a stop. He shook his head and started again. "You don't actually have to be smart to use magic," he said, trying to grin and failing miserably, eyes still fixed on the wall. His breaths came shallow and uneven. "So it doesn't matter if I'm an idiot or not."  
  
"Is that so," Arthur said, voice flat.  
  
"Yep." Merlin rocked on his heels and flicked his gaze toward Arthur before fixing it on the wall again. "Could have a very severe mental affliction and still have--still have magic."  
  
"And you thought it would be a good idea to tell me this--in the most inane way possible."  
  
Merlin pointed at his head with one long finger, rolling his eyes to finally meet Arthur's incredulous stare. "Hence the mental affliction."  
  
Arthur waited, but Merlin seemed content to rock back and forth and look everywhere in the room except at Arthur.  
  
Arthur took this as a chance to put a few thoughts in order. He ended up with this:  
  
1) Merlin did not look like a sorcerer. Not that he knew what sorcerers looked like, really, but Merlin looked like the opposite of a sorcerer--lanky and wide-eyed and utterly non-threatening. He supposed that didn't matter, though. And who said Merlin was powerful? He could be a very weak magic user, after all. Perhaps the spell in Ealdor was the biggest one he knew, or something. That was probably it.  
  
2) If Merlin wanted Arthur dead--sorcerer or not--Arthur would probably be dead. This was largely because Merlin had access to both Gaius's weird potions (there had to be poisons there somewhere) and Arthur's food. Or he could have taken one of the knives Arthur kept around his room and stabbed him in his sleep. Or he could have stayed silent about the poison, or not pulled him out of the dagger's way the first day, or any number of things.  
  
It was a bit unsettling to think that without Merlin, Arthur would have been dead years ago.  
  
3) Merlin was still too much of an incompetent idiot to have some greater scheme. Or be evil. Arthur thought you needed a great scheme to be properly evil, anyway.  
  
4) Merlin was honestly the worst manservant he had ever had--all of the other ones had managed to do their duties well and in a timely manner without committing treason. How hard could it be?  
  
5) Arthur was not going to kill Merlin. He should banish him, at least, but he had a feeling he wasn't going to do that, either, and Arthur had no idea what options that left him. Well, he did, but at the moment he did not want to think about them.  
  
Instead, he cleared his throat and said, "Well?"  
  
Merlin's eyes slid back to Arthur's, then away. "Well what?"  
  
" _Well_ , Merlin, an explanation would be nice."  
  
"That might be a problem."  
  
Arthur blinked, then sat back and folded his arms across his chest to glare more effectively. He realized that he was still holding the quill and contemplated putting it back on the table. He swished it again instead.  
  
"And why might that be, _Mer_ lin?"  
  
"I have a lot to say and don't know where to start." He paused, considered, and continued. "Or what I could say to keep my life, my job, and whatever trust you've given me over the years."  
  
Arthur nodded in understanding. "Well. Considering that you have been lying to me since we met--that's trust broken--about using magic--which is a crime punishable by death--then you should be lined up for execution, which would, of course, end in loss of life, which would in turn mean loss of employment. So I'd say your chances of that are..."  
  
"Not good?" Merlin supplied feebly, looking rather sickly. He was a few shades paler than he had been a moment before and swaying slightly.  
  
"Right. However..."  
  
Merlin perked up at the sound of that word like a starving man would at the sight of a feast.  
  
"However, something tells me you have designs on neither my life nor my throne. Since, obviously, I am still alive and the king."  
  
"I wouldn't know what to do with a throne if I had it, Sire," Merlin added. "Well. Sit in it, I guess." He bit off whatever babble he was about to spew when Arthur leveled a long _look_ at him.  
  
"Are you sure you're a sorcerer?" he asked. Maybe the idiot was deluded or something. Arthur wouldn't be surprised, if the little mysteries that had bothered Arthur from the beginning weren't suddenly solving themselves.  
  
Merlin glared at him. "Quite sure, Sire."  
  
"And you're not, say, coming to a foolish conclusion because of some convenient coincidences, or--"  
  
"Oh, for--" Merlin cut himself off to tip his head forward and stare at the quill in Arthur's hand, and then Arthur was too busy focusing on the way Merlin's eyes had turned gold for a second and _bloody hell, he really is a bloody sorcerer_  to notice the pen leaping from his grasp to dip itself in the ink well and scrawl a message on a blank sheet of parchment. When more coherent thoughts had returned, Arthur looked down to where the quill hovered over the page.  
  
 _Believe me now, Sire?_  
  
"Huh," he said. Merlin seemed to remember himself and with a mildly panicked expression, he let the quill drop back to the table. Arthur thought he should be furious, and shout, probably. Instead he felt nothing at all.  
  
"Sorry," Merlin said. He blinked a few times, stunned.  "Erm. I didn't...quite mean to do that. I mean. That was a bit..."  
  
"Idiotic."  
  
"Yeah, probably."  
  
A moment of awkward silence compelled Merlin to start moving again, mucking about and pretending to do actual work rather than standing in front of Arthur's desk being useless. He picked up a pair of Arthur's boots this time and sat down to clean and polish the leather. For Merlin, this meant wiping a cloth across the toe of the boot until it met whatever standard of shininess that Merlin deemed acceptable (which usually meant that one, maybe two layers of dirt had come off, at most).  
  
"So. Am I fired? Should I stop doing this now?" he asked, hunched over the boot.  
  
"You're more than welcome to continue," Arthur said instead of answering the question. Maybe if he ignored the whole situation, it would go away.  
  
Merlin narrowed his eyes at Arthur, but he didn't stop scrubbing. It occurred to Arthur that, if the trick with the quill was any indication, Merlin would be much better at his job if he was allowed to use magic to do it. Then, _Who says he doesn't use it when no one is watching?_  
  
He shook his head as though that would make the thought fall out of it. "So, what? You have so much to say that you aren't going to say any of it?"  
  
Merlin shrugged. "A lot of it seems a bit pointless," he said. "I never imagined--no. I never _expected_  you to take it so well. It seemed like too much to ask for. Something I wanted but didn't deserve."  
  
Arthur shifted, suddenly uncomfortable with the reminder that he could have reacted much more violently, and was expected to have done so. A buzzing tingled at the edges of his mind, as if his thought processes had fallen asleep and they were just now waking. He cleared his throat. "Yes, well. I might change my mind."  
  
Merlin frowned at him, then shook his head. "No you won't. You've already made up your mind." He gave the boot another scrub, then held it up to the light. Satisfied, he dropped it and picked up the next one.  
  
"I could call the guards," Arthur offered.  
  
"But I haven't finished your boots." Merlin waved one as evidence. A clump of dried mud fell off the toe. "I won't be able to clean anything from a cell."  
  
"You're not the only servant in the castle, Merlin. If you were, Camelot would have fallen years ago."  
  
"You'd have to find and train a new one, though," Merlin said. "The last one _you_  picked turned out to be a thief and got himself posessed by an evil sorcerer." He paused his boot-cleaning to consider. "You don't like George's jokes. If you get a boot-licker, the castle won't be able to able to hold your big head--"  
  
Arthur threw his empty goblet at his servant-sorcerer's head, and Merlin dodged it with the ease of practice.  
  
"--And anyone else wouldn't last a week," he finished. "They'd run from Camelot in tears once they knew how you really act."  
  
"Anyone else would consider it an honor to serve their king. You're the only one who complains."


	3. Tell Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Merlin tells it like it is.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Arthur asked, and Merlin choked back a laugh.  
  
"Think a minute, yeah?" he said. "How exactly would I do that? Come in one morning, open the curtains with a cheery 'Rise and shine, guess what, I'm magic, please don't chop off my head'? I rather like it where it is, thanks."  
  
"You should have trusted me." Arthur crossed his arms, feeling more than a little petulant. Merlin's expression softened.  
  
"How could I? I mean, how could I really?" He turned away, his eyes finding the floor. "Your father. The law. Your own experiences. Practically every magic user you meet wants to destroy you, or your father, or Camelot. You had no reason to trust it. You _have_  no reason to trust it. There's just me, and...well, we both know you never listen to me." He gave Arthur a wry smile, his gaze sliding up to meet Arthur's for a second before they flicked away again. "I know you, Arthur. I know how you react to magic. I've seen you fight it, and question it, and help it, and even--for a little while, at least--almost accept it as something other than what your father said. But you never quite did."  
  
"Maybe I would have if I'd known there were people like you, who wouldn't use it like that."  
  
"Maybe. But I couldn't risk finding out if you'd wait long enough to listen, could I?"  
  
Arthur wanted to disagree, to say that Merlin should have known Arthur wouldn't kill him. He couldn't. He didn't know himself what he would have done.  
  
"I've been the one to tell you that you shouldn't trust magic. I've been the one to tell you that the reason people are dying--again--is magic. There is good, it is used for good--but never where you could see it. I wanted you to see, but would you see it for what it was? Or something darker?"


	4. Knights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the knights know something Arthur doesn't.

"I'd like to say that I am only here because I could not convince them this is a bad idea," Lancelot said, looking disapproving and noble. "They would have come without me, and since I have known the longest, I thought it best to accompany them. They wouldn't even wait for Merlin to return," he added, and shot a reproachful glance laced with righteous anger at Gwaine, making it clear who "they" meant.

Gwaine had an easy, broad grin on his face that always spelled trouble, his feet thrown on top of Arthur's papers once he had sat down. Elyan and Leon wore twin expressions of determination, though Leon looked uncomfortable where Elyan was cautious. Percival merely looked interested.

"We waited for him to leave, actually," Gwaine supplied. "To give you some time to calm down. We wouldn't want you to do anything too rash, Princess. You might regret it later."

"What about Merlin?" he asked, suspicious and ignoring Gwaine with the ease of long practice. Anything about Merlin was probably bad news, since the idiot couldn't keep himself out of trouble for as long as it took him to cross a room. And Arthur really mistrusted Gwaine's smile. That was bad news in itself.

Gwaine opened his mouth, but Lancelot kicked his chair to keep him quiet.

"You have to understand, Sire, that we only know because we found out accidentally. Merlin never would have told me--or any of us--on his own, at least not until he had told you. Of that I am sure."

"Told me what?" Arthur was beginning to think this was a joke, except everyone was acting so serious (well, Gwaine wasn't, but then again, Gwaine never took anything seriously).

Again, Lancelot interrupted Gwaine before the other man had a chance to speak. "He really only lied because he felt he had no choice. He assumes the worst because it's safer that way."


	5. Explanations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Various pieces of post-reveal conversations.

"It's an act of willpower to not set your trousers on fire, sometimes, when you say something rude or double my chores list just because you're grumpy," Merlin commented with a small smile, his head tilted to the side. Teasing, but with an edge of seriousness that made Arthur nervous.  
  
"You wouldn't," Arthur said, and Merlin chuckled.  
  
"You're right. I wouldn't. I could, but I haven't. And I never will." Merlin was serious now, trying to make a point. He leaned forward. "Because having power isn't the same as using it. Anyone could go around and do whatever they want whenever they want--the cook could grab the nearest knife and hack at anyone who complains about the venison again. But she doesn't." Though Arthur could see the image almost too easily, and feared its occurrence on a near-daily basis. "Everyone makes choices. Some people choose to hurt, others to heal. To fight or protect. Magic is just another tool."  
  


oo00oo

  
"It's standing by in a fight when I could be helping," Merlin said, his voice rising, frustrated. "It's letting fall what I could catch. It's speaking up and not being heard. It's acting helpless and knowing I'm not, but also that I can't afford to show it. It's watching people die when I could save them. It's not being able to change who I am or what I can do, and not wanting to, because without it, I'm, I'm--nothing. Nothing at all."  
  
_You're my servant_ , Arthur wanted to say. _My friend_. He kept looking for some difference, some mark of the power that Merlin had, but there was nothing. He was the same as he always was.  
  
"It's not about magic being good or evil. It's not that there aren't types of magic that are bad--mind control, necromancy, torture. Those are the things that should be illegal. It's that there are all kinds of people, and yeah, some of them aren't going to want to follow the rules, and they're the same people who wouldn't be following the rules anyway. Outlawing magic is just making criminals of people who wouldn't be. People who would use magic for healing, like Gaius, or protection, like Gilli."  
  
"Gilli? The one from the tournament?" Gilli had magic. That explained some things, too.  
  
"Yeah, yeah. I caught him cheating with magic. He's a small bloke, right? And a lot of people pushed him around. He was just tired of it. He wanted people to take him seriously, and he thought, maybe if he won the tournament, people would respect him. But it wasn't fair, because the other contestants didn't know what they were facing or how to fight it even if they did. So I told him he had to stop. He took a lot of convincing. Finally, though, he understood.  
  
"Look. It's pretty obvious what I think. But--whatever you decide to do with me, or about magic, whether you keep the law or change it--I think you should have both sides of the story. Two sides of the same coin, remember? Oh, shut up, I know. But more than that, you deserve to know."

 

oo00oo

 

"Right. That's...that's good. Great. Erm." He hesitated, then tilted his head toward Arthur with a sheepish expression. "I've been thinking about you knowing for a long time, you know. Since...probably since the first time you saved my life. I've imagined pretty much every way you might find out--if I told you, or if you caught me at it while I was being careless and stupid, or if I had no other choice but to use magic to save your life. Maybe someone else found out and told you, or you figured it out. I'd imagine how you would react, what I would do and say..." He chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I had speeches planned out."  
  
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "And this isn't one of them?"  
  
"No. This is, ah...improvised," Merlin said. "The speeches and the scenarios depended on my mood. And your mood, and what you thought about magic recently. After the Druid boy, the scenarios turned out pretty well. I kept my head and everything," he joked weakly. "After Morgana..." He swallowed. Arthur realized Merlin had paled visibly. "I've had nightmares about it. And I could never tell if I was being paranoid or not. There was always this awful 'what if?' that I just couldn't face."  
  
Arthur felt that some reassurance was needed. "I'm not going to kill you," he said, voice gruff. Merlin's eyes, when they met his, were brimming with raw gratitude and relief.

 

oo00oo

 

"You know, between polishing your armor and saving your life, I don't have much time left for plotting your downfall."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments, and constructive critiques are always welcome and much appreciated.
> 
> (I'm greedy for feedback, I admit it.)
> 
> { [come say hi!](http://aithuzah.tumblr.com) }


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